By 1983, the Crosstown Expressway was completed to Brandon, opened as far as a minor exit ramp at Falkenburg Road. The final half-mile portion didn’t open until the road to which it connected, the Interstate 75 bypass of Tampa and St. Petersburg, opened in 1986. The Crosstown was now 14 miles long, with a maximum toll of 85 cents (35 cents at the western toll plaza, 50 cents at the eastern toll plaza, with smaller tolls charged at certain entrances and exits).

In the late 1980s, the logo was changed to a picture of a smiling pirate on a blue background, supposedly the legendary Jose Gaspar, to go along with Tampa’s annual Gasparilla celebration. Although the Crosstown is known to the Florida Department of Transportation as state highway 618, because it is owned by the Expressway Authority and only maintained under contract by the DOT, there are no “618” signs posted, just signs with the pirate logo.

In the future, the Selmon Crosstown Expressway will be extended west from its original south terminus in order to directly connect with the Gandy Bridge, allowing traffic wanting to cross Tampa Bay to avoid all the traffic lights on Gandy Boulevard between Dale Mabry and West Shore Boulevard.

The interchanges on the Selmon Crosstown Expressway are consecutively numbered, rather than numbered according to the nearest milepost. The Expressway Authority has no plans to change the numbering anytime soon, probably because the road averages out to one exit per mile anyway.

Exit 8 (westbound), FL 60: Downtown EastExits 6 through 8, formerly named for the streets to which they exit, were renamed in the mid-1990s to match the names of the downtown exits from Interstate 275.